. . The small restaurant behind the building was nothing fancy. It was simple and fairly crowded with employees from several companies in the area. Aurelia chose a table in a relatively quiet corner.
"What do you want to eat?"
"I'll play it safe."
Aurelia looked at him.
"Why?"
"I'm allergic to shrimp."
"Oh."
Aurelia immediately picked up the menu.
"Then we'll make sure there's no shrimp."
Yubi smiled. "I can choose for myself."
"I know."
Aurelia called the server over and made sure their order contained no shrimp. She then chose something simple for herself.
"How long have you been allergic?"
"Since I was little."
"Is it severe?"
"A little usually makes me itch. If I eat enough, I can have trouble breathing."
Aurelia nodded seriously.
"Then you really do have to be careful."
"Yeah."
They didn't talk about work for several minutes.
Instead, Aurelia asked about Yubi's life in China.
"You lived there for five years?"
Yubi nodded.
"Five years."
"For school?"
"Yeah."
"By yourself?"
"At first, with Mom. After that, I mostly handled everything on my own."
Aurelia didn't ask any further. She could tell from Yubi's expression that family wasn't an easy subject for him to discuss.
Instead, she asked about something else.
"What do you like?"
Yubi thought for a moment.
"Cooking."
Aurelia looked slightly surprised.
"You can cook?"
"A little."
"What kind of food?"
"Simple dishes. Fried rice, soup, a few Chinese dishes."
Aurelia smiled.
"So you don't always eat out."
"When money's tight, cooking is cheaper."
Aurelia fell silent.
She had just realized that Yubi's life was very different from what she'd imagined. People might see him as part of the family that owned the company, but the man still counted every penny he spent on food.
"Why did you come back?"
The question finally slipped out.
Yubi didn't answer right away.
"Because I was finished with what I had to do in China."
"And your family?"
Yubi looked down at the table.
"That's more complicated."
Aurelia didn't press him.
"If you're not ready to talk about it, that's okay."
Yubi raised his head.
"Thank you."
Aurelia smiled.
"Everyone has parts of their life they don't want to talk about."
The conversation made Yubi feel comfortable. Not because Aurelia forced him to open up about his past, but because she knew when to stop asking questions.
For the first time since coming home to Indonesia, Yubi had found someone outside his family who didn't make him feel as though he had to explain himself.
Over the following days, they worked together more and more often.
Aurelia asked Yubi for help analyzing distribution reports several times. In turn, Yubi began to understand how Aurelia made decisions. He liked the way she worked: decisive and not given to small talk, but always clear about her reasons when she rejected or accepted a proposal.
Their relationship hadn't turned romantic.
Still, people at the office were beginning to notice that the two of them were being seen together more often for work.
Beni even teased Yubi once.
"Ms. Aurelia calls for you a lot."
"It's work."
"You eat together a lot, too?"
"Because we're working late."
"Not everyone who works late eats with the manager."
Yubi gave him a flat look.
"Are you jealous?"
"A little."
Yubi laughed.
"Finish your report."
Beni laughed along with him.
On another floor, Naila began getting to know Kenan by chance. Several times, she had to deliver documents to the director's office, and Kenan was always brief with her. Naila wasn't afraid of him, but she didn't try to attract his attention either.
One afternoon, while Naila was carrying documents to the secretary's desk, she dropped her pen.
Kenan happened to be coming out of the room and picked it up.
"Here."
"Thank you, sir."
Naila accepted the pen.
Kenan noticed that her hand had gotten a little ink on it.
"You don't have any tissues?"
Naila shook her head.
Kenan handed her a tissue from the secretary's desk.
"Thank you."
"Don't get ink on the documents."
"I won't."
The conversation ended simply, too.
But precisely because neither of them was trying to rush the relationship, that small moment of closeness felt more natural.
Meanwhile, Yubi began facing another problem.
At the end of the week, an old report from the legal department landed on the operations desk. The document concerned a supplier that had once worked with Kenan's family's factory, before the company grew into a large corporate group.
Yubi read the company's name.
His hand stopped.
He had seen that name before.
Five years ago.
In one of the documents his father had kept.
He read the first page again.
Then the second.
The contract number was the same.
His heart began beating faster.
He didn't jump to conclusions. He knew that one matching name proved nothing. So he wrote down the contract number and filed a copy of the report according to procedure.
That night, Yubi opened the box of his father's belongings again.
He searched for the old document with the same number.
After nearly half an hour, he found it.
The number was exactly the same.
Yubi fell silent.
For five years, he had assumed his family's problems had only involved the sale of his father's factory and his mother's decision to take him to China.
But now there was something new.
An old contract was still connected to the company where he worked.
He didn't yet know what it meant.
And he had no intention of accusing anyone before he had proof.
But for the first time, Yubi realized that coming home to Indonesia might not simply be a chance to repair his relationship with Kenan.
There might be another reason the past kept finding its way back to him. . .